Kevin O' Donoghue and Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:00:23
Hi everybody. This is Kevin O'Donoghue Licensed Mental Health Counselor. And this is Niseema Dyan Diemer, Licensed Massage Therapist and Trauma Specialist. And this is The Positive Mind where we bring you some ideas, concepts, and guests to help you lead a more positively minded life. And we have been bringing you guests for, Oh, let's say the last five weeks
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:00:46
And we've gotten a lot of feedback and we're going to talk about that feedback. Read it out to you. Some of it as the show progresses, but today we thought we'd want to recap the last five shows that we've done because so many issues and ideas and concepts that might help you lead a more positively minded life came up in our discussions with Bethany Saltman, author of Strange Situation, A Mother's Journey Through The Theory of Attachment and Charley Winenger the Listening To Ecstasy guy who just came out with his book, Listening To Ecstasy. Are you experienced? That's one of the things I wanted to ask during his visit with us, are you experienced?
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:01:30
And then Warren Farrell was with us for an hour, a way back. Now it seems a long time ago talking about The Boy Crisis, why our boys are struggling and what we can do about it. And Niseema and I tried to figure out what's the common thread here. We've missed talking to you directly so we did want to do that today, but what is the common thread through these five sessions? These five shows with our guests and we came up with the word
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:01:58
Connection, connection, connection.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:02:02
In Listening To Ecstasy Charley was talking about getting connected to yourself and to the other person. And we remind you that ecstasy MDMA is being used to help and to treat many, many mental health disorders right now. And it is scheduled to become a legalized prescription by 2023. It's clearly been approved for the treatment of PTSD with war veterans, for sure. And now we realized that it helps elderly people, people in the last stage of life, it helps people with OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. It helps with social anxiety, social phobia.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:02:44
It actually even helps with autism.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:02:49
Yeah, they're studying that it can sort of open the mind of the autistic a bit in a way that that will help them socially engage, which can be the biggest problem. Right? That's what
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:03:00
It is because I'm familiar with, with these other aspects and also substance abuse, substance addiction, substance disorders. So we thought we'd talk a little bit about the science of MDMA and this way of people getting connected. But Charley was also talking mostly about how MDMA has provided the glue for his marriage, his second marriage, and he's 71 and she's 69 and they'd been married for 12 years and how it's really given them a new lease on life. And so we're going to be talking about that as well. And then, you know, this idea of connection with Bethany Saltman, imagine not feeling connected as an infant to your mother, being allergic to your mother's milk, metaphorically speaking.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:03:48
Yeah. And maybe as a mother feeling not connected to your child and how that can be distressing,
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:03:55
Right. And Bethany shared her struggle with that, that through the first years of her daughter's life, she recognized she loved this person, this daughter, but gosh, she really didn't feel connected to her at all. And then Warren Farrell talking about boys and boys sort of being adrift in our culture that especially boys without fathers, especially, but even boys with fathers. And we talked a little bit about rough housing, this idea of a father actually making physical contact in a playful way with his son and the tremendous benefits of those things and that kind of thing.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:04:38
And then we introduced that show by talking about the Wall Street Journal article that said, fathers kiss your sons. And so we want to give you some of the feedback we've been getting. Thank you for sending it to us at thefoundationforpositivepsychology.org. We've gotten some feedback and we wanted to build our show and talk about that today on this show, some of the feedback we've gotten. First Niseema let's talk about Bethany Saltman because she talked about this famous psychology experiment or procedure rather where there are two chairs in a room and there are toys on the floor and a mother and a stranger or a mother is sitting in the chair by herself.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:05:26
And the baby, the infant, the one-year-old, the two year old is sitting on the floor, playing with their toys. And a stranger comes in in the room and the mother and stranger engage. And then the mother leaves, what happens to the child? What happens? It's a strange situation, a famous procedure. And what's important is what does the baby do? Not what the baby does when the mother leaves, but what does the baby do when the mother comes back, is the baby angry at the mother? And so will ignore the mother, get even with the mother, get back at the mother or will the baby regulate and feel attached to the mother and welcome the mother back,
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:06:16
Or go to the mother's arms and be able to be soothed by the mother. And then there's also the case where the baby maybe doesn't even notice that the mother left and doesn't notice when she returns and that's a very sad kind of situation, but it does happen.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:06:33
And it's important to know that, right? To be able to see that as you're busy mothering, you might not actually see that your baby is not responding or caring whether or not you're walking in the room or that you think that it's a problem. You know, you might just might think, Oh, three months from now, things will change and whatever. So you might not be considering it a problem at that moment.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:06:56
Right. And, and the thing that she really stressed and that made a lot of sense is that in our culture, we kind of prize the capacity of a child to do things on their own and at a certain stage of development that is right. And they should be able to at least try to do things on their own, but to be completely sort of isolated and not have emotional responses. That sort of goes along with the independence. You know, it's like this quote unquote independence, children are not supposed to be independent. They are supposed to be dependent for a certain degree and they should feel like they can explore and go out and come back and that they want to come back and maybe even show what they explored, you know, what they found out in the world, and that, like then they're sharing their delight, which is something that we talked about, but it was an interesting cultural distinction.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:07:53
She said, you know, it's like Western culture really prizes the independent child. And that that might be working against us,
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:08:00
Right. It's not necessarily a good thing. So you might go to a party and say, my kid feels totally fine when I leave the room. And when I come back, it doesn't phase the child, my child at all, and you can puff your chest out and feel proud about that. Not a good thing. You want the child to miss you when you're gone and be upset when you come back and then learn how to regulate themselves and soothe themselves.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:08:26
Well, I'll venture to say that there's in our culture, we really prize achieving a successful, kind of emotionless people. Sometimes the person who is avoidant with this is the avoidant attachment. In adulthood they become someone who strives, works really hard, doesn't have a lot of emotional attachments. And that is good in business. In some way, it's is what a doctor kind of needs. I mean, doctors should have some emotion and stuff. That's something, but, but that capacity to sort of plow through and not be caught in emotions is kind of a prized thing.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:09:06
And, and maybe it's just something to look at culturally.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:09:08
It's often the image were given of successful people, right? And there are statistical information that shows that this could actually start at six months at one year, at 18 months. And so that's what Bethany Saltman was talking about. This strange situation. You can look that up and see, and she highlighted that they're universally across nations, across boundaries, across borders, that there are really three consequences. There are three types of attachment consequences of this that shows, that's illustrated in this experiment. So if, if the mother comes back and the baby is soothing themselves and they feel back in sync and is able to synchronize back and in touch with the mother, then that child has generally what we would consider a secure attachment.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:10:04
They're able to get back to a sense of safety with this mother figure. And they're securely attached. And Bethany shared that 65% of children across the world are securely attached. So that's a good thing. That's what we want. 35% are not. The mother comes back and the baby looks away or doesn't get engaged or refuses to be engaged, or is ambivalent is just not really responding at all or just being anxious. This is what we call insecure attachment and a sign of it. So what I liked about her book, and this is an update from experiments done in the fifties first one in 1951, I believe that she updates this research about attachment and shows.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:10:54
What can we do about it? We want to know if our child does not feel securely attached. If when the mother comes back in the room, the child is distant or remote or cold or anxious or insecurely attached. Basically we want to know this because it's very important in their relationships later in life. So like you say, a resistant child will grow up to be a preoccupied adult. So relationships might not be that important to them, being successful is important to them. And is that what we want? Do you want to be just a successful person and maybe there are roots of it in your childhood, in your infancy even, that's why it's always great.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:11:42
If you can find out how was I as an infant, it's also great to know how you were born, right? How was my birth? Was my birth a natural, easy birth or comfortable birth or struggling, any issues in the birth process?
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:11:56
Well, and these can be really good questions to ask if your parent is still alive or someone who might've been there it's good to sort of know what might have shaped and formed you along the way. But another interesting distinction that I think Bethany made was around temperament and attachment because some children can have a temperament that maybe, as a parent, you don't really jive very well together because their temperament is just their temperament. There can be a sensitive child or kind of a more easy going child. And you're maybe the opposite or the same, which can be a bit of a rub.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:12:36
And that it has so much to do with whether or not you can relate to each other in some way that you are in a relationship that has its comings and goings. And that there's the security in knowing that, the child can leave and will come back and the child knows that they can leave and come back to you and you will still accept them, even though you may not like them, you might still love them, or at least express your delight in them and what they do and be interested in them and who they are and who they're developing to be.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:13:11
I like this idea that she talked about delight, and I know one of our listeners asked us about delight a few, actually recommended new delights because in the book, The Strange Situation:A Mother's Journey To Attachment, Bethany talks about delight in your child. And can you look and close your eyes and think, and remember, and see when your mother was delighted to see you. Some people's memories can go back to before walking, that they can see their mother delighting in them. And can you imagine if you can't see it and remember it, can you imagine that it was that way? And I shared in the show, the second show that I can certainly remember that. I can certainly imagine that my mother was delighted to see me.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:13:55
But if that's not the case, if it's like hard for you, I mean, you can also just bring on that experience yourself. Like, what do you delight in now? And that can set you up for a new kind of relationship with a world you're in, it's like, there's this, I love that you used this word delight because it's something that lights you up, right? So if it's not a relationship, say with your primary caregiver, it's a dog or a friend, or one of our listeners said that she really delights in going to her coffee shop. She misses it now because of COVID.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:14:36
But she really delighted in the smells and the sounds and the atmosphere of the coffee shop she loved to go to. So that's something that if we can just bring some awareness to that, you can build that capacity and build this relational sense.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:14:52
She mentioned deligh in the sense of self care that, okay, we're hoping that you experienced delight with your young child and that your child experiences it with you, but you might not be capable of delight. You know, maybe you're just one of these people that is struggling getting through life and is not feeling that delight with the infant. She says self care is childcare without taking care of yourself as a mother, you're not going to be very good at taking care of your child. So she emphasizes this idea of delight by saying, go away, go find ways of having some delight so that when you're meeting your child and with your child, some of that can come through.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:15:37
And so she mentioned seven of these ideas in the book, but yes, we got a few examples from people calling us. Did we get these through email? Yes. We got these through email, The Foundation For Positive Psychology tffpp.org that people came up with their own. I'm trying to think of one of my own right now. I delight in many things, but I liked her mentioning scent. I'm surprised she didn't mention music. Did she mention music?
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:16:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Music and sound are very important.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:16:12
But she didn't mention that. No, but she mentioned light.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:16:15
Yeah. Any sensory experience can be something you can delight in and that's a good place to start. So sound, touch, you can delight in a really cozy blanket. Yes. You know, like I have this cozy blanket
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:16:30
And the feeling of a texture of something.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:16:33
Or a color, or, there's just a lot of potential for delight. Like I said, like a pet
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:16:40
And it strikes me as you're talking too, Niseema, that delight is like a form of connection that when you are experiencing these things, you're experiencing them as a kind of being contacted, Oh, I'm really being effected by the color, by the smell, by the sound, by the vision, by the sight, by the trees, by the smell. So that's what that strikes me as.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:17:04
It's a sensory experience. It's like, I'm having an experience, a relationship to something in the world that's touching me in a way, that's sparking something in me that I feel connected to, or that helps me connect to myself a little bit more. And I think that's why it's self care because it's like, Oh, this is something I really like.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:17:24
So Niseema, hat you're saying is bringing to mind in the later part of the book, she talks about this couple, the Steeles S T E E L E that work with vulnerable mothers, vulnerable populations. Where the children generally are going to have an insecure attachment. They videotaped these mothers in moments when they were getting it right when they were making contact. So these were mothers that thought that I'm not attached to my child. I don't know why my child isn't attached to me. We can't develop it, you know? And they gave up and they videotaped these mothers and child where they had moments where they were getting it right, where the mother was transferring.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:18:08
Let's say a toy to the child and doing it with a smile. And there was a moment of eye contact or things like that. And to me, and we didn't get to talk to Bethany more about this, that to me, is the promising part of this kind of research, because you want to interrupt this pattern early, you want to take an insecure attached child from insecurity to security, and you don't have to be a great mother. She's saying you don't have to be like the best mother in the world to do this. You just have to create, you just have to be a safe base, a base where the child feels in this room with this person, I am safe. And usually that's the mother and you want it to be the mother.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:18:50
Yeah. And I think this whole research is informing a lot of programs around the country that are helping mothers to feel more confident in their capacity and that they can set themselves up for success. There are many different ways that they're teaching mothers about just the simplicity of this and that it doesn't have to be a big deal to give themselves a break. And also, any caregiver of course,
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:19:17
Because mothers need a break. And we all want to recognize that the caregivers in general, but the mother or the person that's with the child these first nine months, this first year. So, there's tremendous potential for this kind of research. And of course, we know that Bethany's book was rated one of the top 10 science books of 2020 by New Science Magazine. So this is going to be, I think really breakthrough research, really important research because as an adult, your partner, you can look at your marriage partner or your relationship partner. And as therapists, we see this all the time is your partner insecurely attached, were they attached to their mother growing up?
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:20:01
If you're anxious, if you're overly anxious as an adult, there's a chance that you were insecurely attached and that has effects on your intimacy level, intimacy. It is valuing your intimacy level as an adult. So you might be resistant to intimacy as an adult. We're married, but I'm strictly in the role of provider or whatever you want to identify as your role. And I don't really value intimacy that much. I'm not looking to get in touch with feelings or being close or different things, or you might be totally resistant to relating to your spouse and your partner, or have given up, you might have given up and then, okay, I'll focus on work.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:20:47
So that's what the Steeles are doing, I think is tremendously important to reverse the insecure attachments or to work with people so that we can get the secure base, secure attachment child in a higher percentage. 65% is good, but it can be much higher because relationships, what are we talking about? Our theme today is connection. We think that these five shows were really ultimately about connection and connecting, and that's one of the greatest delights in life. And when you've given up on connecting or have accepted like a low level of connecting in my relationships, or even with yourself, I mean, that's what I think this idea of delight is: I'm kind of disconnected from myself.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:21:37
I need to practice. And she called it practice delighting. Let's talk about MDMA. Well, since we're talking about the life
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:21:49
In talking to Charley, he's delightful. And he sort of, I think credits his continued use, but measured use of MDMA, for helping him shift from being an anxiety filled distressed person to one who's much more attuned to delight in his life. And this might be the substance that can help people who might be really entrenched in a complex PTSD or just a situation where it's just been so bad. Your relationship history has been so unstable and so painful.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:22:32
I don't want to say bad, painful that you just totally avoid it. Ye our natural desire is to be connected as human beings. We have a blueprint that says connect, connect and be safe and be well. You are so much healthier as an individual if you are in some sort of connected relationship, just one is enough, right? But to be alone, entirely alone is really, really difficult.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:23:02
Well, he talked about MDMA as a connector, to not only his wife, which has improved his relationship. And as he said, he's calling it the glue of his marriage. And so they do this together five or six times a year. They'll do it on vacation, but that's the real benefit he says is on a daily basis where he's seeing the connections in society, out in the world, when he's walking around, how things feel connected for him. So, you know, he talks about this illusion of separateness that we're all walking around with this illusion of separateness. Now he has done enough MDMA trips in his life that it has has taken a base inside of him So when, if he catches himself going down that road of separateness he'll remind himself like, no, the real truth is my greater reality is that I am connected.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:23:59
I have had moments of tremendous connection. That is where my joy is like in life. That's the most real part of me. I'm going to shift from this sense of separateness to where can I feel connected? Where do I feel connected? So,
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:24:18
And, and I can imagine if you, if you walked around with that as your lens, that I'm connected here, I'm connected to every person on the street in some way, shape or form. I'm connected to the buildings, to the trees, to the animals. If you walk around with that sense, I can imagine you feel really supported too. Like I just got the sense of a web. Like there is something there connecting us all. We are supported in a web. And that to me is someone who works with trauma. Oh, the best thing for the nervous system to feel supported. It's one of the first things I do with my clients. It's like, feel support, feel the support of the chair.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:24:59
If nothing else feel the support of the chair underneath you, because that's real. And guess what? After many, many experiences or whatever, maybe you can start to feel that you are indeed connected to everything. And that's what the spiritual journey often reveals.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:25:17
Somebody asked about the science of MDMA, right? So it's kind of simple. It's really that the brain gets flooded with serotonin, a neurotransmitter like with antidepressant meds, most antidepressant medication is that attempt to increase serotonin in the brain, in the setups between the brain. So SSRI is means what a serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. So yes, serotonin, yes, a serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. So in order for the serotonin to stay within the synapsis of the brain so that you can feel elevated.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:25:59
When it's gone, when you're depleted of serotonin, you'll feel depressed. And so in a use of MDMA and I could see how this is useful in the treatment for PTSD victims sufferers that it floods the brain with serotonin, so that you're able to sit in the memories that are troubling you. Right? So PTSD is a sort of memory disorder. It you're getting flooded with memories at certain moments of things that happened in the past, and you're trying to deal with them and manage them in the present. And so you'll get triggered by certain things. You'll have dreams. You'll be thinking about it all the time, et cetera.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:26:40
Now, when you're flooded with serotonin, serotonin helps the brain relax. So now you can see, and also there's an uptake in dopamine. There's another one, epinephrine is the third one, right? So there's an increase in these compounds in the brain, these neurotransmitters, and they relax the system enough. You talk more specifically about fitness, but it relaxes the system enough where you can process the memory and not react, I suppose. But you're the trauma specialist so you talk about this.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:27:11
I think you process it in a different way because you have different chemicals on board that'll help you because when it actually happened and when you keep reliving it, you end up with a lot of cortisol in your system. You end up in fight and flight. When we have MDMA sort of stimulating these sort of more relaxing, have a little bit of distance to that you can re-experience the memory with less charge, with less physical charge, right? You've got some balance there. And so maybe be able to put it in the right place and in the right context, which is, that had happened in the past.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:27:47
So let's talk about it in the sense of connection or disconnection, right? So with the MDMA you can feel connected to the trauma, the memory, the incidents, the events, et cetera.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:28:01
I think you would feel them in a different way though. You wouldn't necessarily connect to them. You'd be connected to yourself, safe right here and now, witnessing what's happening in the past.
Kevin O' Donoghue and Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:28:11
Okay. And generally, when you're feeling traumatized in your symptoms or you're feeling kind of disconnected, we're going to take more of your emails when we come back, you're listening to The Positive Mind. I'm Kevin O'Donohue and I'm Niseema Dyan Diermer and we'll be right back.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:30:29
Hi, and welcome back to The Positive Mind. So in our first half, we were talking a lot about attachment and how important it is. And we mentioned mother a lot, but you know, Bethany also says in her book that fathers are a very important part of this equation. And that was what we really learned with Dr. Warren Farrell. Like how, when a father is missing in the equation, the result is really tragic.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:30:50
I mean, what would account for the disconnection in boys or in men let's just contemplate that. Do boys look disconnected. What are they not connected to? As opposed to girls? I mean, girls play with each other, obviously boys compete against each other. I mean, if you close your eyes and just think, and picture boys, you could see there is a level of disconnection and maybe that it's even encouraged by our culture. Certainly all the TV shows and the movies and everything promote the idea of the boy and the man is the hero and separate and trying to triumph and conquer something rather than feel connected.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:31:32
And I think that might also show up in child rearing. We'll talk about it as a thing, it's like boys, I think most parents would try to make the boys feel independent and the girl not so. They can be a little protective, right. You know, and not protective in a way. And it's really interesting. I think the tide is definitely shifting, but there is a kind of crisis that Dr. Farrell talks about and that it has so much to do with how connected is the father into the situation.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:32:08
Right. Well, first off 93% of the people in jail are male, 93%. And of those, 90% of those males didn't have a father or were disconnected from their father. You know, this show is about connection. These guests were about connection, the importance of connection, and what happens when you're disconnected? Your job capacities suffer, your school success goes down, drug consumption, and this is something that he really emphasized. The what number one variable to achieve success for a boy is the ability to delay gratification.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:32:56
If you can't delay gratification, if you're immediate, if you're looking for immediate satisfaction, immediate gratification you're going to have a lot of deficits in life. And I think one of the major ones is this lifelong sense of disconnection from people. So from intimacy. So Bethany Saltman talked about the one-year-old and the importance of attachment and the 35% who feel insecurely attached. I bet I would guarantee that of that 90% of males that didn't have fathers, they had, at least 75% of them had an insecure attachment.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:33:41
So there's definitely a connection here, but there's hope because he has a remedy just like the Steeles had a remedy of catching mothers doing it right. Dr. Farrow found that fathers' physical contact with their boys in a healthy way is curative and the effects of which are lifelong. And, I shared when he was on, how important that was for me and my dad, that my most intimate moments with my dad were before I was 15, when we did rough house, when I could feel his face against my face, and that memories of that have stuck with me even in times of hard times that I could conjure those memories.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:34:22
And they're the most satisfying, some of the most satisfying memories of my life. And I can't imagine going through boyhood without that kind of contact with a male figure. So that is the question, should fathers kiss their sons? The overwhelming resounding answer is absolutely. And we had somebody who responded to that. Do you want to talk about the email we received about that?
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:34:50
Yeah. This listener was just talking about how she really, oh sorry that he really wants to engage and kiss his son and be more affectionate, but he didn't get that as an adult, as a child himself. And so as an adult, he feels a lot of hesitation to do that. And I'm sure there are a lot of men out there who feel that kind of hesitation, and there's a certain age in which boys don't allow it anyway. Right. A certain separation. But, I think it's a really important thing to try to cultivate, or at least express the desire for, and maybe it's not a hug and a kiss, but like, Hey, let's go play some touch football or something like that.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:35:34
Or just, you know, play wrestle. Something like that.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:35:37
What a shame. I mean, I would think it's never too late. It's never too late for a father, whether he's 12 or 20, for a father to hug their child, hug their son, but of course, you want to start this rough housing at a young age, it's so intimacy building. One mother in the book was talking about feeling alienated from the father and the son and how unfair it was. So she was trying to break it up because she was jealous that this father and son had this bond that a mother couldn't approximate.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:36:12
Yeah. And sometimes the mother comes in out of a certain fear that somebody might get hurt. I think that's what you kind of figure out. It's a boundary making thing. As the father's interacting with a son and back and forth, they sort of learn what's too much. And this is a great place for the son to maybe go a little too far against dad and dad be like, hold on there. That's when we're just getting a little too, too intense, and let's slow this down a little bit. And this is why, and the teachable moments, Bethany Saltman also talks about this too. Those teachable moments that dad can provide very, very important,
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:36:51
Teachable moments for your son by the father is critical, is important. But I would also argue that it's worth a broken table or broken couch that if the mother is getting upset with the father and son rough housing and something happens to break it's okay, mom, I mean, this is going to be really more and more important for (Niseema: hopefully it's nobody's nose) for the son. Yeah. Well, I mean then that's not really rough housing. That's really gone too far. And so you're right. It does teach boundary making that I'm over here, you're over there, dad and I can only go so far. And so you kind of incorporate this lesson of boundaries being separate from a mother, as you're doing something that's fun, that's the best way to learn.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:37:36
And this also brings up, I'm thinking about the quality of exploration and something that Bethany talks about is that a distressed child won't explore. And I think exploration is something that father supports in the, in the relationship in the, in the childbearing it's like, it's dad, who's gonna, you know, not necessarily, you know, I don't want to be sexist in this, but you know, usually it's the father, who's going to go take them for a hike or do something a little dangerous, a little risky, a little more, and the child is able to do that with dad is learning more secure attachment. And isn't as sort of anxiously worried about things, they're developing another kind of security in taking risks in exploring.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:38:26
And it's a sign of not being so distressed. Because again, if you're internally stressed as an adult, even the last thing you want to do is explore. I think that's something I've been recognizing.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:38:40
It gets very narrow when you're under stress and distress. And if you're an infant and you're distressed, then you're not out exploring the world and identifying different things and taking in different things and not expanding. So it makes sense that you want, and I would think this would be the first thing to notice, is my child an explorer. Are they capable of exploring, coming back and feeling again, secure a secure base, come back, then go back out and explore again and come back, et cetera, critical for development. Certainly as we get older and we're distressed, we're not exploring, our world gets narrower, and that's not a good thing;
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:39:20
we want to be expanding. And so that's what I like about her talking about delight as a way to get back in touch with the expansive self.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:39:31
I'm just thinking about an exploration. And my father was a hobby pilot, and we would sometimes go flying just him and me. And I thought that was just a wonderful, I'm thinking, wow, that's a risky situation. He took me up into the air and we'd fly around and see our house. I had brothers too, but that was a special time, to go flying with dad, and I feel very lucky. So it's like those little moments, even for girls are really important
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:40:03
And vice versa, she didn't talk about mothers exploring what their sons like having. That's a hard me wondering about that combination. There's, I'm sure, going to be research on the potential in the possibilities mother-son bonding in the teen years and beyond,
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:40:22
And this again, sort of distilling attachment it's so much about do you care about relationships or not? Do you care about connection? And that will show you that you have some level of secure attachment somewhere in your life it happened. If you care about connecting to someone or something, it could be just maybe you're someone who's sworn off people and you're just caring about dogs. Well, that's, that's a connection, or cats. There's some people who are like, I don't do humans anymore. I only do animals and I get it. It can be very painful experience, but that's a relationship too, and that's a connection and we need it so much.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:41:09
And it's so important for us. And so whichever way you can find it, whichever way you can get over the hurdles and just know that if you're concerned about and want to connect, you've had some sort of secure attachment in your life, whether it happened with your mother or father, that would be best, but it's not a life sentence. And you might have found a secure attachment with an elder, some sort of a teacher or friend.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:41:37
So an insecure attachment is not reversible. There is work. You can do. But you might be insecurely attached and then not be able to go out. You might be socially phobic. That would be one of the effects of being insecurely attached. So this is where Charley comes in. And I do think this has great potential once this does become legalized. And again, it's in the final trials that is expected, fully expected to be prescriptable by 2023, that social phobia aspects and the social anxiety aspects and the promise of MDMA may to help cure that.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:42:21
I mean, because without it, how are you going to get connected without some kind of chemical when you're socially phobic, because you were insecurely attached as a child, how are you going to get it? I mean, MDMA is an accelerant. It would accelerate the potential and impossibility for connection.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:42:44
It would. And there are people who, who might not want to go that route. And like we said, like the practice of delight, I'm starting to sort of feel your sensory experience might help you start to feel connected to something connected to yourself. I mean, again, yeah. I mean, MDMA can possibly do that. And, and I just want to qualify one thing, I don't believe he was saying it was going to be prescriptable, but it was going to be part of a treatment protocol that it's a very specific, it would be controlled treatment protocol. It's not like you would take it like an antidepressant.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:43:20
Oh, okay. He did parse out the distinction between that. And that's correct. Let's get back to the connection and social phobic aspects of it because he talked about there's no downside really. I mean, yes, there is, you know, a depletion of serotonin for a few days, and there are ways to increase your serotonin as you come through the MDMA experience. But other than that, there's not a downside. So why would you not, if you're struggling to get connected to people, if you are socially phobic or socially anxious, and this is readily available and you make yourself comfortable with people, which is what this can do, why wouldn't you take it?
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:44:06
Why wouldn't you do it? I think it has great potential. So we want to reverse this sense of disconnection, this illusion of separateness, that we all walk around with this focus on succeeding, pure focus on success and the awareness that maybe I am connected and I just don't see it. And I need some help.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:44:32
And even for that person who is so success-driven, I mean, he or she must feel so somehow connected to the work that they're doing. Like, even in that, if you can recognize even that connection, like I'm connected to this work somehow, what does that feel like? That might be a little door to open inside of you.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:44:52
So we have to talk about a couple of things before we end the show. And one was the bullying aspect that both Warren Farrell talks about and Bethany Saltman talks about. Again, the name of her book is Strange Situation: A Mother's Journey through The Science of Attachment and Warren Farrell's book is called The Boy Crisis. Why our boys are struggling and what we can do about it. But the bullying has it's start in infancy. You know, there it is. If you are avoidantly attached, if you avoid, when your mother comes back in the room as a child, you can grow up to be a bully. Basically is that I'm avoiding I don't want anything to do with nurturing and warmth.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:45:38
And also this idea of co-regulation. I don't want anything to do with that. And you can't blame the child. The child is one years old, but this can lead to a bullying because you don't care about relationships. And then relationships become manipulatable. And there are power differentials. And I'm going to be, since I don't need nurturing or care or connection, I'm going to get the next best thing, which is power. So I will be a bully.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:46:09
So how that happens to the infant or the small child, is that they're in a situation where their emotions and there's no relationship between them and their caregiver. Like there's emotions are how we relate to each other on some level. And if your caregiver can't handle their own emotions, shuts down their emotions and therefore shuts down yours as a child. Then you're going to learn that, you know, emotions and connections don't matter,
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:46:38
Right? Which brings to the, to mind the idea and the book mentalization, knowing what your child is feeling. And as a child, imagine the value of knowing what your mother is feeling. Imagine being 10 years old and saying, daddy, are you were angry with me? Being able to notice the parent, the parent's emotion and being able to mouth it, say those words. So go ahead.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:47:04
What happens when you're able to do that is that you can get some confirmation about whether dad's angry at me, or dad's just angry because of work or something he did. Right. But
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:47:15
You don't have to make it up. So, because dad looks angry or mom looks upset, you don't have to make it up that I'm the cause of it, they can openly say, no, I had a difficult day at work. I had a problem with a coworker or et cetera, mom is saying, no, you know, I'm having problems with the laundry or something domestic or her own work. Yeah.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:47:41
Well, and mentalization is the ability to be able to sort of mirror someone in their emotions, to the parent, raising a child needs to be able to feel and have their own emotions and be able to be with the child in their emotions. But you do that through having and being with your own emotions. So Bethany really stresses in the book that you have to do your own work. Maybe you get support, maybe you talk to somebody. You need to have your own sense of your own emotional ground when you're in relationship with your child, with anybody.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:48:23
And if I'm able to do that, I'm able to mirror and be with somebody in theirs. Because if I don't take care of my emotions, like for me, and I've said this before on the show, anger was a hard one for me to mirror and be with, I've been growing in it. I've been learning too, but that was one emotion that wasn't allowed kind of in our house. And I had no place to put it. And so when I learned a little more about it, I'm able to be with it more. But I had to learn to be with my own first. And that I think is really helpful. And I'm able to now mentalize and get somebody else who's angry and not shut them down.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:48:58
Because you're not afraid because you've dealt with it in yourself. You're able to handle it in other people. And you're saying something really valuable. And I guess becoming a mother and becoming a parent and being married, you do get in touch with how I must've felt as a child and what I wasn't allowed to feel. And now it's inhibiting or interfering with how I want to be as an adult. So I better look at it. I should look at why is it I can't get angry. Cause if you're a mother you're going to confront anger. If you're a father, you're going to confront anger as well. You know, so doing this work is really important. I love how she keeps saying in the book self-care is childcare, not self-care is child abuse, because if you're not taking care of yourself as a caretaker, how are you showing up?
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:49:47
As you know, so again, she's not heavy handed about this. This is really important. And she realizes and talks about in the book how hard it was for her to be a mother. So we're not minimizing that, but self care is childcare.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:50:01
And in that self care again, I just want to say it again. Emotions are where we connect in so many ways. It's where we show our vulnerability, it's where we show what's happening for us. I think sometimes when you're not in touch with your emotions, you don't know what to do with them. You end up putting them on somebody else instead of owning it for yourself. But when you can really do that and sit down and share where you're at a lot happens. And I think this time that we're living in right now is a good time to be able to do that because we know that just about everybody has been affected by this pandemic in some way by this election in some way. And if you can sit down and just express how you're feeling, what your feelings are what's been going on with you, I think you'll find a lot of connection in sharing that with a friend or even somebody on the street, who knows.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:50:56
Well, could we end by talking about safe conversations? We could talk a little bit about that. I did want to finish with the bullies because the bully is one who was an avoidantly attached child, insecurely attached with an avoidant tendency and the bullied, the person who was bullied is also insecurely attached, but they were the ambivalently attached, the resistant attached, not the avoidant. They resist. They would begrudgingly give mom a chance, a second chance. She left me alone with this stranger, but I'll give her a second chance. I won't resist her. I'm ambivalent about that. So bullied and bullies are on the insecure attached spectrum.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:51:36
It's interesting that she parses that out
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:51:39
And that these two would be attracted to each other in a tragic way. Just kind of recapitulating that pain, somehow
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:51:48
She mentions securely attached children know how to avoid bullies and it's kind of true, right? You kind of know is as a securely attached child what's inappropriate and so you learn how to skirt danger as a securely attached child, one of the benefits. But I don't know, we have a couple of minutes in the same, this idea of connection, because we talk about the show in terms of these guests that we had talking about connection, all of them. And again, I'll repeat the authors. One is Warren Farrell who wrote a book called The Boy Crisis, Why our boys are struggling and what we can do about it.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:52:28
Then Charley Winenger's book Listening To Ecstasy, which is largely about connecting with his wife through this chemical of MDMA and keeping his marriage really alive and his sense of connection to the world. And then Bethany Saltman's book The Strange Situation, a famous procedure back in the fifties and revised now, but a Strange Situation, A Mother's Journey Through the Science of Attachment about connection, but we've had guests who deal with how do we increase connection between couples that are in distress that are arguing and fighting.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:53:09
And can't seem to find a way back with each other. And you mentioned the word mirroring. Maybe we could do a little mirroring to close out the show. So I'd like to have a conversation with you. Are you available?
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:53:23
I am available.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:53:26
So the pandemic has really gotten to me
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:53:28
The pandemic has really gotten to you
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:53:30
I feel really disconnected from you and the kids.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:53:35
You feel really disconnected from me and the kids.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:53:38
I sometimes just want to go off on my own
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:53:41
And you sometimes want to go off on your own.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:53:43
I don't know how to make my way back to our relationship.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:53:48
And you don't know how to find your way back to our relationship.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:53:52
So I kind of slowed down and not feeling a lot.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:53:57
You're so kind of slowed down and not feeling a lot.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:54:01
So I'm not going towards you. And I don't know how to reconnect with you.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:54:05
So you're not coming towards me and you don't know how to reconnect.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:54:08
So this is mirroring, right? And so a good mother is doing this with their child and it goes further and further. And at one point Niseema would summarize when I'm done with this talk, she would summarize everything I said, and then she would do what's called validate.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:54:27
Yeah. And then I would say, you know, it makes sense to me that right now you're feeling a little distant and you know, far away and maybe a little down. It's, it's kind of a rough time. So it makes sense.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:54:43
Respond to me in an emotional way with empathy.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:54:46
So I can imagine you might be feeling distressed. Yeah. I'm a little afraid about, you know, maybe losing me or losing the kids and just in that loss and us not knowing how to get back.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:55:01
And that's, what's called a safe conversation and that's on our podcast. You can get that at The Positive Mind Radio Show podcast, and that's going to be our show today. So we're glad we could sort of spend some time hanging out with you folks and just recapping these books and our guests and the messages from them and highlighting certain areas.
Niseema Dyan Diemer
00:55:22
We'd like to thank our new affiliate airing The Positive Mind KBOO 90.7, Portland, Oregon. We also have our usuals C are in Alameda, California, KAOS Olympia, Washington, KPPQ, Ventura, California, KXCR in Florence, Oregon, K Y GT and Idaho Springs, w GRN in Columbus, Ohio and wr WK in Richmond, Virginia. Thank you for your continued support. Our producer, Connie Shannon, our chief engineer, Geoff Brady. You can contact us at info@tffpp.org with questions, comments, or suggestions for the show. You can also find our podcast on most podcast platforms, The Positive Mind.
Kevin O'Donoghue
00:56:06
See you next time folks.